Most construction safety books start with legislation. This one starts with watching a foreman die.

Marc Dalton was eighteen years old when that moment changed the course of his life. What followed was thirty years on Irish construction sites — as an apprentice, a sheetmetal contractor, a company owner through the recession, and eventually an Associate Director for Construction EHS leading teams across mainland Europe.

This is not a textbook. It will not prepare you for an exam. It is the honest, practical guide to what construction safety actually looks like on Irish sites — the legislation, the culture, the near misses, the difficult conversations, and the mistakes that nobody warned him about.

Covering everything from permits and confined space entry to working at height, HAVS, dust, mental health, incident investigation and building a safety culture that lasts, every chapter is grounded in real stories from real sites. Thirty years of hard-won experience, told plainly, for everyone who works in or around Irish construction.

Written for the apprentice starting out, the foreman holding everything together, the EHS professional in their first role, and the site manager who wants to do things properly.

The site moves on. Make sure the people on it go home.